> You seem to be thinking in terms of improving the > hard-wired defaults. What I'd like is a "style" > mechanism that lets a user develop a set of defaults.
Finale's libraries are supposed to do this. The problem is that there are so many different library types, that you must load seven or eight different libraries to make a "style change." I recommend that the library mechanism be made more flexible. For example: One could theoretically make a "pseudo-Henle" library, with font definitions, line thicknesses, slur and tie definitions, and almost all the other settings. The big problem becomes the articulations and expressions, which are harder to manage. When creating the library, you could specify which settings you wanted to include in the library, and which settings not to include (you would not want page-layout settings, for example). RP's "Settings Scrapbook" plugin currently attempt something like this, but does not have access to all of the settings in Finale (especially the newer ones); with complete access for plugin developers from Coda, this entire functionality could be done in a plugin. But really, I think that Coda should start out with one or several initial templates that were more professional: a classical template with better line thicknesses, slur and tie settings, etc... if Coda wants specifics, they should see J. Gebauer's page "Get the best out of Finale" http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/J_Gebauer/ The classical template could also use a title font that was not quite so large, and a bold "composer" box. A few more suggestions: The tenuto mark, as has been frequently mentioned on the list, is too thin. Instead of modofying the Maestro font, which would create versioning problems for everyone, the tenuto should be a graphical articulation (4.5 EVPUS thickness?). When "Add group and bracket"ing, the brackets/braces should be closer to the staff. I don't think that there is a default setting for this; it must be changed manually after-the-fact. Another thing that would make Finale signifcantly more professional "out-of-the-box" would be automatic "Patterson Beaming." If they could get Robert to give-away/sell/license his code, it should be fairly easy to integrate this directly into Finale, and would make the scores more professional-looking by default. Lastly, note-spacing music with lyrical melismas often produces very bad results. The lyrics are wide, and Finale thinks they collide with the next beat, even though on paper they don't. A more-intelligent spacing mechanism that calculated where lyrics were actually going to collide would improve the spacing of a lot of vocal music. ** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ** ** Benjamin Smedberg, Director of Music ** ** St. Patrick's Church, Washington D.C. ** ** VOX 202-347-2713 x102 - FAX 202-347-1401 ** ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** ** "Soli Deo Gloria" ** ** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ** _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
